What was the deal with the Jell-O craze that captured a nation?

Growing up in the Midwest meant lots of things: small towns, farmland for miles, overly friendly neighbors, and of course, Jello salad. “It seems like a euphemism, but this actually occupied the spot on the plate for salad where you Cali folks would have some mixed greens with oil and vinegar,” Stephanie Hoese remarked about her childhood midwestern dinner table. Stephanie, now living in Southern California, is not alone in her memories of a Jello Salad at the table. This trend of jellying anything and everything in a fancy mold gripped America in the mid 20th century, and no one (or place) was immune. If it was in your cupboard, it could be in Jello. One of the stranger iterations of this phenomenon Stephanie recalled was a red hot Jello Salad. “It included cinnamon red hots, cherry Jello, apples, celery, and walnuts. It is surprisingly good.” While Stephanie admitted that not all the dishes were enjoyed (like the classic green Jello and shredded carrots), I still had trouble understanding how this well meaning neon colored dessert took such a dark turn.

To trace the origins of Jell-O, we need to go back to Medieval Europe where gelatin desserts were the food of royalty. Author Sarah Grey explains in an article from Serious Eats that gelatin was an expensive and time consuming process to make. The process of rendering collagen from animal hooves was painfully slow and labor intensive. Because of this, intricately molded jellied desserts on your table was a status symbol, a way to show off that you had enough money to pay servants to make the jelly and on frivolous food. This continued to the mid 1800s, with francophile Thomas Jefferson bringing the luxurious dessert to America by serving jellied wine at Monticello.

With industrialization came a much easier way to prepare the dessert. According to a What’s Cooking America timeline of gelatin in the mid 1800’s, Charles Knox developed the first pre granulated gelatin, and in 1895 cough syrup manufacturer Pearl B Wait added fruit syrups to the gelatin desserts, naming it Jell-O. Refrigerators were still not a common household appliance, so in the early 1900’s just like in medieval times, Jell-O dessert signified wealth as one needed a refrigerator to have it properly set.

As the 20’s roared on, Jell-O desserts only soared in popularity. Sarah Grey notes that the packs of fruit flavored instant gelatin promised the desserts of the wealthy for only 10 cents a box. The Great Depression gave Jell-O, especially lime flavored Jell-O, a huge sales boost. Part of this sales boost was in part due to the fact that the Jell-O packets already had sugar in them, so you didn’t need to dig into the sugar bag in your kitchen. The other reason was to not waste any leftovers. By using the molds to gelatinize any leftover scrap of green bean or meat, you were eliminating food waste in an economical, efficient, and elegant way.

Post World War II, further industrialization and women taking paid employment outside of the home contributed to the rise of processed food. Author Sarah Keens highlights in her Huffington Post article that this new generation of women leaned on Jell-O to provide quick snacks and meals for their families, allowing them to maintain a presentable and orderly home while still working to pay the bills. The abundance of molds available to create gravity-defying, jiggly vegetables made a simple dish feel miraculous. Gelatin became such a staple in kitchens across America that according to The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, “about one-third of all cookbook recipes of the time were gelatin based.” Walk into any home with 2.5 kids and a white picket fence and you’ll find a “Perfection Salad” or worse, Jellied Lambchops.

As the decades went on, nutrition trends shifted towards fresh tossed salads and Jell-O salads fell to the wayside. In order to continue to promote their products, Jell-O shifted its focus from savory meals to sweet desserts. As if foreshadowing the products slow disappearance as a kitchen staple, the company partnered with Bill Cosby in the 90’s to market their products.

Despite falling out of fashion in most of the country, you’ll still find plenty of Jell-O salad in parts of the midwest and Utah, the self proclaimed Jell-O eating capital of America. As for myself, I am more than happy to leave this dark part of culinary history in my grandmother’s recipe cards and not my dinner table.